‘Evil’ pleads guilty in Platform Networks case

Upside: no more ‘NBN hacker’ headlines?

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David Noel Cecil, who earlier this year was arrested on accusations that he had hacked into computers operated by Platform Networks, has pleaded guilty to two counts of causing unauthorized modification of data.

Cecil, who launched the attack under the moniker “Evil”, entered the plea via his solicitor Peter Ringbauer, according to the Central Western Daily.

The attack on Platform Networks earlier this year led to a flurry of entirely inaccurate but distressingly persistent stories that Australia’s National Broadband Network had been hacked. Nothing of the sort happened: Platform was signed on as an NBN retail service provider, but had not yet gone live on the service.

That widespread cluelessness, partly fuelled by early police statements that the attack “threatened Australia’s cyber-infrastructure”, eventually drew an angry response from NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley that there was no threat to the NBN infrastructure.

Cecil still faces a further 48 charges, the Central Western Daily quotes Ringbauer as stating that many individual incidents occurred within seconds of each other. It is therefore feasible that prosecutors may consolidate these into a smaller number of charges when the matter returns to Orange Local Court on December 16. ®